All Things Mobile

10 Reasons Why You Want Your Website to Use Responsive Design

Responsive design is a design method that adapts your website to the user’s device. Whether you have an existing mobile website or you’re planning to build one, you have to decide between going with the classic mobile site and responsive design. It may be a bit more expensive to go with a responsive design but here are 10 reasons why a responsive design is a better choice.

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Reason #1: Your Marketing Efforts Are Focused – Rather than having to set up a marketing campaign for two different sites, you can focus on one site. You won’t have to worry about setting up a separate campaign for targeted for mobile users, making launching a campaign less resource and time intensive.

Reason #2: You’ll End Up Saving Money – There’s a lot of cost that goes into marketing two different sites. You can’t forget about the fact that you need to build content and links for mobile sites. The costs of advertising and marketing two websites can really add up over time. So while responsive design has a higher upfront cost, it more than pays for itself in time.

Reason #3: Responsive Websites Deliver a Better User Experience – A responsive website allows for your website to adapt to different viewing screen sizes and formats. This is something that you cannot do with a static mobile website and the primary reason why responsive design leads to a better user experience.

Reason #4: You Maintain Your Links And Content – Many Internet marketers seem to forget that the search engines rank mobile separately and you need to build links and content for your mobile site. With a responsive site, all your SEO efforts benefit both your desktop and mobile site.

Reason #5: You Avoid Duplicate Content – A responsive design means that you don’t have to deal with duplicate content issues from your mobile site. This hurts your credibility and also has leaves your site open to penalization.

Reason #6: Responsive Sites Have Better URL Shareability – Using one website makes it easier for others to share your URL and leads . For example, if somebody shares your website on Facebook, a mobile user that follows the share will end up on a website that’s not designed for mobile. Using mobile URLs like www.m.domain.com is also less appealing than a regular URL.

Reason #7: It User Trends – More people are using their mobile phones and devices to do things they would normally on desktops and laptops. For example, many people like to file their tax returns online, so accounting websites need to be prepared to meet their expectations.

Reason #8: Google Supports Responsive Design – Google has publicly said that responsive design is the way to go, especially if you’re running any kind of campaigns with their Adwords program. There’s also a lot of conversation about how Google is using user experience metrics as a ranking factor.

Reason #9: Responsive Design Works With More Formats – Mobile websites are designed for mobile users. However, mobile websites cannot account for things like screen size, OS, browsers, TV, viewing format, and combinations of more than one of these factors.

Reason #10: Keeps Your Branding Efforts Congruent – Large scale branding will advertise your main website but the problem is that mobile users may see your URL and end up with a bad user experience. With responsive website, you can ensure that your branding efforts lead to an ideal experience while also not confusing users with multiple choices.

As you an see, responsive design is the way to go. It allows you to save money, save time, and provides a better experience to your target audience. Again, the upfront costs may make you feel hesitant about switching over, but it is an investment that for pay for itself many times over.